Dept of School Education clarifies on MDM Scheme

Asks NPRAAF to substantiate claims

KOHIMA, February 18 (MExN): The Directorate of School Education, on Tuesday responded to the allegations made by the Nagaland Public Rights Awareness and Action Forum (NPRAAF) concerning the alleged irregularities in Mid Day Meal (MDM) scheme.

“The claim of the NPRAAF of a racket where politicians and departmental officials demand percentages from profits after illegal sale of food grains in the market from the contractor is a very serious allegation and therefore, the NPRAAF is asked to substantiate the same with evidences,” Principal Director, Directorate of School Education, Shanavas C said in a statement.

The statement explained that the Department is providing Mid Day Meal to the Pre-Primary (Class A & B) students and not only from classes I- VII as alleged by NPRAAF. 

It said that the yearly allocation of food grains depend on the number of working days and number of schoolchildren; and as per entitlement of students (Primary- 100 gms per child per day & Upper Primary- 150 gms per child per day) 4076.590 MTs of food grain has been allocated or the year 2019-20 as per enrolment. The total number of beneficiaries for the year 2019-20 is 1,57,510 (Primary- 1,19,144 and Upper Primary- 38,366) and not 1,06,298 as reported by NPRAAF, it added.

The Department clarified that it has engaged only one carriage contractor for transportation of food grains to 9 districts along with NCLP. For the districts of Tuensang and Longleng, the Department is implementing the scheme with NGOs on PPP mode and the food grains are lifted from the FCI depot by the NGOs for the respective districts, it said.

While it is true that food grain received is in excess of the actual requirement for 2019-20, the department clarified that excess allocation is a normal practice since the excess of food grains received is accounted as Unspent Balance and is subsequently adjusted during the next allocation.

Further, it said that the Department has issued directives making it mandatory for every school to display posters indicating complete details of food grains and cooking costs received for a quarter along with enrolment of students in the school for public awareness and transparency in implementation of the scheme.